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Winemaker Edouard Le Grix de la Salle tends vines on his family’s Grand Verdus wine estate in Sadirac, southwestern France’s Bordeaux region, Wednesday, July 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Eva van Dam\/AP Photo\/Eva van Dam<\/p>\n
The chateau of the Grand Verdus wine estate in Sadirac, southwestern France’s Bordeaux region, Wednesday, July 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Eva van Dam\/AP Photo\/Eva van Dam<\/p>\n
Winemaker Edouard Le Grix de la Salle tends vines on his family’s Grand Verdus wine estate in Sadirac, southwestern France’s Bordeaux region, Wednesday, July 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Eva van Dam\/AP Photo\/Eva van Dam<\/p>\n
Grapes hang in a vineyard on the Grand Verdus wine estate in Sadirac, southwestern France’s Bordeaux region, Wednesday, July 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Eva van Dam\/AP Photo\/Eva van Dam<\/p>\n
SADIRAC, France (AP) \u2014 From his vineyards in Bordeaux wine country, Edouard le Grix de la Salle can sometimes smell the burning forests far away. The smoke brings a whiff of hardship for the region’s economic fortunes.<\/p>\n
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Wildfires that have burned an area four times the size of Paris and driven 220,000 people from homes and some of the region’s tourist attractions promise to sting France’s already squeezed economy.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s a physical apocalypse when you see all these sites where there\u2019s nothing left aside from burnt homes and forests, and then there\u2019s the economic apocalypse,\u201d said Patrick Seguin, president of the regional chamber of commerce, his voice choking with emotion in a phone interview.<\/p>\n
It’s \u201cgoing to be a stab in the back for what remains of our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Le Grix de la Salle is among entrepreneurs bracing for pain. French government appeals for people to avoid the region are causing consternation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s incredible that they\u2019ve said such a thing, especially when wine tourism is becoming more and more important,\u201d Le Grix de la Salle said.<\/p>\n
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Bordeaux\u2019s legendary wine has seen consumption plunge as young people turn to other beverages and competition from vineyards abroad has grown. U.S. President Donald Trump \u2019s tariffs have given winemakers \u2014 and much of the global economy \u2014 an added hangover.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe wine business has been in crisis for several years now and it\u2019s worsening with the geopolitical problems, the now widespread problems of inflation and the fact that wine is falling out of fashion among younger people,\u201d Le Grix de la Salle said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTourism was really the only dynamic part of the business that was still growing, both for us and, more generally, for Bordeaux wines,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd now this comes along as a brake.\u201d<\/p>\n
His family’s Grand Verdus wine estate is roughly 35 kilometers (20 miles) from the fires that have raged since last week on the other side of the Garonne River that runs through Bordeaux. Bordeaux’s Gironde region is mainland France\u2019s largest by area and the fires have hit only a small percentage of it. But the mark on its reputation is sizable.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHow did they not think about protecting that sector? And the cultural sector, too. There\u2019s so much to visit in Bordeaux. There are so many museums, there are ch\u00e2teaux. It\u2019s unbelievable,\u201d Le Grix de la Salle said.<\/p>\n
The region in southwest France is replete with vacation spots for tourists lured by soft-sand beaches, winemaking ch\u00e2teaux, some of France’s largest pine forests and the historic city of Bordeaux, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The oyster-rich Arcachon Bay draws foodies. But the fire and evacuations have emptied some prime spots.<\/p>\n
The chamber of commerce says 39,000 businesses have been affected in the region that’s a hub of defense and aerospace industries, including Airbus, Dassault and Thales.<\/p>\n
Even before the fires, the chamber of commerce said rising energy costs were squeezing profits. Some 94% of businesses responding to a poll of regional enterprises in mid-July said they face difficulties.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019re getting more and more calls from heads of small- and medium-sized businesses, tiny businesses and craft businesses that are calling for help and saying, \u2018What am I going to do tomorrow?\u2019\u201d Seguin said.<\/p>\n
Two commercial courts in the cities of Bordeaux and Libourne reported a 37% increase in business liquidations from June 2025 to the same month this year, he noted.<\/p>\n
Bordeaux Mayor Thomas Cazenave said some restaurateurs told him that reservations have plummeted. He is pushing back against other officials’ pleas that people avoid the region. He repeatedly has noted that the city hasn’t been evacuated and isn’t closed for business.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe museums are open, the cafes and restaurants are open,\u201d he said. \u201cLife also goes on in our beautiful city.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Keaten reported from Lyon, France, and Leicester reported from Paris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Winemaker Edouard Le Grix de la Salle tends vines on his family’s Grand Verdus wine estate in Sadirac,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":968601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,388950,69,156,184754,184755,388951,184749,184750,184751,326112,324520,7202,7203,358,386540,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-968600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-america","tag-bordeaux-forest-fire-gironde-economy-france","tag-donald-trump","tag-france","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-patrick-seguin","tag-product-30597-ap-business-news-f-wire","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31995-ap-online-general-financial-business-news","tag-product-32502-ap-online-europe-news","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-san-antonio","tag-sanantonio","tag-texas","tag-thomas-cazenave","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=968600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/968601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=968600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=968600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=968600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}